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The problem with today’s gospel reading of the prodigal son is that we have heard the story so many times that we might be immune to it’s message.

When we hear the opening “A man had two sons” we think ah, I know this one, and out attention drifts.

In year’s past, on the all-too-few occasions when I have been attentive through the reading, I have most often focussed on which of the two sons is more like me – or which of the two am I most like.

A few years ago I read a powerful reflection given by Pope Benedict in his Angelus address in 2020. I have tried to express his reflection in my own words but I can’t do better than Benedict so here is the core of his reflection in his own words. I have highlighted the points which have moved me most. The complete text is available at this link.

This passage of St Luke constitutes one of the peaks of spirituality and literature of all time. Indeed, what would our culture, art and more generally our civilisation be without this revelation of a God the Father so full of mercy?

It never fails to move us and every time we hear or read it, it can suggest to us ever new meanings.

Above all, this Gospel text has the power of speaking to us of God, of enabling us to know his Face and, better still, his Heart.

After Jesus has told us of the merciful Father, things are no longer as they were before. We now know God; he is our Father who out of love created us to be free and endowed us with a conscience, who suffers when we get lost and rejoices when we return.

For this reason, our relationship with him is built up through events, just as it happens for every child with his parents: at first he depends on them, then he asserts his autonomy; and, in the end if he develops well he reaches a mature relationship based on gratitude and authentic love.

In these stages we can also identify moments along a person’s journey in relationship with God.

There can be a phase that resembles childhood: religion prompted by need, by dependence. As a person grows up and becomes emancipated, the want to liberate themself from this submission and become free and adult, able to organize himself and make their own decisions, even thinking they can do without God.

Precisely this stage is delicate and can lead to atheism, yet even this frequently conceals the need to discover God’s true Face.

Fortunately for us, God never fails in his faithfulness and even if we distance ourselves and get lost he continues to follow us with his love, forgiving our errors and speaking to our conscience from within in order to call us back to him.

In this parable the sons behave in opposite ways: the younger son leaves home and sinks ever lower whereas the elder son stays at home, but he too has an immature relationship with the Father.

In fact, when his brother comes back, the elder brother does not rejoice like the Father; on the contrary he becomes angry and refuses to enter the house.

The two sons represent two immature ways of relating to God: rebellion and childish obedience. Both these forms are surmounted through the experience of mercy.

Only by experiencing forgiveness, by recognizing one is loved with a freely given love a love greater than our wretchedness but also than our own merit do we at last enter into a truly filial and free relationship with God.

 Let us throw ourselves into his arms and be regenerated by his merciful love.

Image above:
The Prodigal Son & his Father
George Grey Barnard

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Cafe Gatherings

Monday 9 March 2026 10.00am
Moko Cafe, Bush Inn Centre
Waimairi Road Upper Riccarton Christchurch
Trish

Tuesday 10 March 2026 11.00am
Mariana’s Kitchen (beside the library)
2 Queens Drive Hutt Central
Catherine

Wednesday 11 March 2026 10.00am
Stumble Inn, 200 Mangorei Road, New Plymouth
Joan